What do you do, exactly?

If someone was to ask you what you do, could you explain it in one or two sentences?

We are going to cover the importance of knowing exactly what, who, where and how you help clients – key areas that will focus your marketing message.

By the end you will be able to target your marketing more effectively and as a result save time and money.

You may have heard of the ‘Elevator pitch’, this is the imaginary situation where you find yourself in a lift with your ideal client and have one minute to explain what you do and how you can help them.

Unfortunately, in many situations you don’t have 60 seconds to get someone’s attention, so if you can summarise what you do in one or two sentences then you will have a much greater chance. Indeed, online you might only have 5 seconds, 15 at most.

What you need to set out, exactly, is:

1) What you do – in detail, not just your old job title but the specifics of what it is you do.

2) Who you help – is there a specific type of client you help? Saying you can help ‘Everyone’ isn’t specific enough.

3) Where you help them – is it in a specific town, county or area? Or can you help people in a much wider area through the internet?

4) How you help them/USP – A USP is a Unique Selling Proposition, so why should people use you? What is it about your service that makes you different?

When describing these four areas, you need to be very specific.

Being specific seems to go against what you would expect – you would think that this would result in fewer clients because you are targeting a smaller area. But in fact what happens is you get MORE business, not less.

By being specific people are able to easily see if you can help them. There are many times I’ve been to networking events and talked with someone for several minutes, but still had no idea of what they did or if I could help them by making a connection.

A good saying I’ve heard is ‘if you ask for anyone and say you can do anything, what you will actually end up with is no one and nothing!’

This exercise is very important, because all of your marketing will be focused based on this information and it will be part of your business plan that guides your business growth.

Once you have it completed, you may even want to put it on your business cards or website, because then people will be able to refer you much easier than if you just list a title that could mean anything…

James McBrearty

James McBrearty specialises in making tax easy for the self-employed. He founded taxhelp.uk.com in 2006 and is also the author of 2 books for small business. In 2016 he launched an online business course that now has over 4,250 students in 130 countries around the world.

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Tax help for the self-employed

James McBrearty specialises in making tax easy for the self-employed. He founded taxhelp.uk.com in 2006 and is also the author of 2 books for small business. In 2016 he launched an online business course that now has over 4,250 students in 130 countries around the world. Read More…